It was a fine day, early in November, and Anne was walking alone along
one of the broad flat avenues that lead from Scale into the country
beyond. Made restless by her trouble, she had acquired this pedestrian
habit lately, and Majendie encouraged her in it, regarding it less as a
symptom than as a cure. She had flagged a little in the autumn, and he
was afraid that the strain of her devotion to Edith was beginning to tell
upon her health. On Saturdays and Sundays they generally walked together,
and he did his best to make his companionship desirable. Anne, given now
to much self-questioning as to their relations, owned, in an access of
justice, that she enjoyed these expeditions. Whatever else she had found
her husband, she had never yet found him dull. But it did not occur to
her, any more than it occurred to Majendie, to consider whether she
herself were brilliant.
She made a point of never refusing him her society. She had persuaded
herself that she went with him for his own good. If he wanted to take
long walks in the country, it was her duty as his wife to accompany him.
She was sustained perpetually by her consciousness of doing her duty as
his wife; and she had persuaded herself also that she found her peace in
it. She kept his hours for him as punctually as ever; she aimed more
than ever at perfection in her household ways. He should never be able
to say that there was one thing in which she had failed him.
No; she knew that neither he nor Edith, if they tried, could put their
finger on any point, and say: There, or there, she had gone wrong. Not
in her understanding of him. She told herself that she understood him
completely now, to her own great unhappiness. The unhappiness was the
price she paid for her understanding.
She was absorbed in these reflections as she turned (in order to be home
by five o'clock), and walked towards the town. She was awakened from
them by the trampling of hoofs and the cheerful tootling of a horn. A
four-in-hand approached and passed her; not so furiously but that she had
time to recognise Lady Cayley on the box-seat, Mr. Gorst beside her,
driving, and Mr. Ransome and Mr. Hannay behind amongst a perfect
horticultural show in millinery.
Anne had no acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Scale and
Beesly Four-in-hand Club, and her intuition stopped short of recognising
Miss Gwen Richards, of the Vaudeville, and the others. All the same her
private arraignment of these ladies refused them whatever benefit they
were entitled to from any doubt. Not that Anne wasted thought on them.
In spite of her condemnation, they barely counted; they were mere
attendants, accessories in the vision of sin presented by Lady Cayley.
Nothing could have been more conspicuous than her appearance, more
unabashed than the proclamation of her gay approach. Mounted high,
heralded by the tootling horn, her hair blown, her cheeks bright with
speed, her head and throat wrapped in a rosy veil that flung two broad
streamers to the wind (as it were the banners of the red dawn flying and
fluttering over her), she passed, the supreme figure in the pageant of
triumphal vice.
Her face was turned to Gorst's face, his to hers. He looked more than
ever brilliant, charming and charmed, laughing aloud with his companion.
Hannay and Ransome raised their hats to Mrs. Majendie as they passed.
Gorst was too much absorbed in Lady Cayley.
Anne shivered, chilled and sick with the resurgence of her old disgust.
These were her husband's chosen associates and comrades; they stood by
one another; they were all bound up together in one degrading intimacy.
His dear friend Mr. Gorst was the dear friend of Lady Cayley. He knew
what she was, and thought nothing of it. Mr. Ransome, her brother-in-law,
knew, and thought nothing of it. As for Mr. Hannay, Walter's other dear
friend, you only had to look at the women he was with to see how much Mr.
Hannay thought. There could have been nothing very profound in his
supposed repudiation of Lady Cayley. If it was true that he had once paid
her money to go, he was doing his best to welcome her, now she had come
back. But it was Gorst, with his vivid delight in Lady Cayley, who amazed
her most. Anne had identified him with the man of whom Walter had once
told her, the man who was "fond of Edith," the man of whom Walter
admitted that he was not "entirely straight." And this man was always
calling on Edith.
She was resolved that, if she could prevent it, he should call no more.
It should not be said that she allowed her house to be open to such
people. But it required some presence of mind to state her determination.
Before she could speak with any authority she would have to find out all
that could be known about Mr. Gorst. She would ask Fanny Eliott, who had
seemed to know, and to know more than she had cared to say.
Instead of going straight home, she turned aside into Thurston Square;
and had the good luck to find Fanny Eliott at home.
Fanny Eliott was rejoiced to see her. She looked at her anxiously, and
observed that she was thin. She spoke of her call as a "coming back"; the
impression conveyed by Anne's manner was so strikingly that of return
after the pursuit of an illusion.
Anne smiled wearily, as if it had been a long step from Prior Street to
Thurston Square.
"I thought," said Mrs. Eliott, "I was never going to see you again."
"You might have known," said Anne.
"Oh yes, I might have known. And you're not going to run away at five
o'clock?"
"No. I can stay a little--if you're free."
Mrs. Eliott interpreted the condition as a request for privacy, and rang
the bell to ensure it. She knew something was coming; and it came.
"Fanny, I want you to tell me what you know of Mr. Gorst."
Mrs. Eliott looked exceedingly embarrassed. She avoided gossip as
inconsistent with the intellectual life. And unpleasant gossip was
peculiarly distasteful to her. Therefore she hesitated. "My dear, I
don't know much--"
"Don't put me off like that. You know something. You must tell me."
Mrs. Eliott reflected that Anne had no more love of scandalous histories
than she had; therefore, if she asked for knowledge, it must be because
her need was pressing.
"My dear, I only know that Johnson won't have him in the house."
She spoke as if this were nothing, a mere idiosyncrasy of Johnson's.
"Why not?" said Anne. "He has very nice manners."
"I dare say, but Johnson doesn't approve of him." (Another eccentricity
of Johnson's.)
"And why doesn't he?"
"Well, you know, Mr. Gorst has a very unpleasant reputation. At least he
goes about with most objectionable people."
"You mean he's the same sort of person as Mr. Hannay?"
"I should say he was, if anything, worse."
"You mean he's a bad man?"
"Well--"
"So bad that you won't have him in the house?"
"Well, dear, you know we are particular." (A singularity that she shared
with Johnson.)
"So am I," said Anne.
"And this," she said to herself, "is the man whom Edie's fond of,
Walter's dearest friend. And my friends won't have him in their house."
"Charming, I believe, and delightful," said Mrs. Eliott, "but perhaps a
little dangerous on that account. And one has to draw the line. I want to
know about you, dear. You're well, though you're so thin?"
"Oh, very well."
"And happy?" (She ventured on it.)
"Could I be well if I weren't happy? How's Mrs. Gardner?"
The thought of happiness called up a vision of the perpetually radiant
bride.
"Oh, Mrs. Gardner, she's as happy as the day is long. Much too happy, she
says, to go about paying calls."
"_I_ haven't called much, have I?" said Anne, hoping that her friend
would draw the suggested inference.
"No, you haven't. _You_ ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"Why I any more than Mrs. Gardner? But I am."
Mrs. Eliott perceived her blunder. "Well, I forgive you, as long as
you're happy."
Anne kissed her more tenderly than usual as they said good-bye, so
tenderly that Mrs. Eliott wondered "Is she?"
Majendie was late that afternoon, and Anne had an hour alone with Edith.
She had made up her mind to speak seriously to her sister-in-law on the
subject of Mr. Gorst, and she chose this admirable opportunity.
"Edith," said she with the abruptness of extreme embarrassment, "did you
know that Lady Cayley had come back?"
"Come back?"
"She's here, living in Scale."
There was a pause before Edith answered. Anne judged from the quiet of
her manner that this was not the first time that she had heard of the
return.
"Well, dear, after all, if she is, what does it matter? She must live
somewhere."
"I should have thought that for her own sake it was a pity to have chosen
a town where she was so well known."
"Oh well, that's her own affair. I suppose she argues that most people
here know the worst; and that's always a comfort."
"Oh, for all they appear to care--" Her face became tragic, and she lost
her unnatural control. "I can't understand it. I never saw such people.
She's received as if nothing had happened."
"By her own people. It's decent of them not to cast her off."
"Oh, as for decency, they don't seem to have a shred of it amongst them.
And the Hannays are not her own people. I thought I should be safe in
going there after what you told me. And it was there I met her."
"I know. They were most distressed about it."
"And yet they received her, too, as if nothing had happened."
"Because nothing can happen now. They got rid of her when she was
dangerous. She isn't dangerous any more. On the contrary, I believe her
great idea now is to be respectable. I suppose they're trying to give her
a lift up. You must admit it's nice of them."
"You think them nice?"
"I think _that's_ nice of them. It's the sort of thing they do. They're
kind people, if they're not the most spiritual I have met."
"You may call it kindness, I call it shocking indifference. They're worse
than the Ransomes. I don't believe the Ransomes know what's decent. The
Hannays know, but they don't care. They're all dreadful people; and their
sympathy with each other is the most dreadful thing about them. They hold
together and stand up for each other, and are 'kind' to each other,
because they all like the same low, vulgar, detestable things. That's why
Mr. Hannay married Mrs. Hannay, and Mr. Ransome married Lady Cayley's
sister. They're all admirably suited to each other, but not, my dear
Edie, to you or me."
"They're certainly not your sort, I admit."
"Nor yours either."
"No, nor mine either," said Edith, smiling. "Poor Anne, I'm sorry we've
let you in for them."
"I'm not thinking only of myself. The terrible thing is that you should
be let in, too."
"Oh, me--how can they harm me?"
"They have harmed you."
"How?"
"By keeping other people away."
"What people?"
"The nice people you should have known. You were entitled to the very
best. The Eliotts and the Gardners--those are the people who should have
been your friends, not the Hannays and the Ransomes; and not, believe me,
darling, Mr. Gorst."
For a moment Edith unveiled the tragic suffering in her eyes. It passed,
and left her gaze grave and lucid and serene.
"What do you know of Mr. Gorst?"
"Enough, dear, to see that he isn't fit for you to know."
"Poor Charlie, that's what he's always saying himself. I've known him too
long, you see, not to know him now. Years and years, my dear, before I
knew you."
"It was through Mrs. Eliott that I knew you, remember."
"Because you were determined to know me. It was through you that I knew
Mrs. Eliott. Before that, she never made the smallest attempt to know me
better or to show me any kindness. Why should she?"
"Well, my dear, if you kept her at arm's length--if you let her see, for
instance, that you preferred Mr. Gorst's society to hers--"
"Do you think I let her see it?"
"No, I don't. And it wouldn't enter her head. But, considering that she
can't receive Mr. Gorst into her own house--"
"Why should she?"
"Edie--if she cannot, how can you?"
Edith closed her eyes. "I'll tell you some day, dear, but not now."
Anne did not press her. She had not the courage to discuss Mr. Gorst with
her, nor the heart to tell her that he was to be received into her house
no more. She saw Edith growing tender over his very name; she felt that
there would be tears and entreaties, and she was determined that no
entreaties and no tears should move her to a base surrender. Her pause
was meant to banish the idea of Mr. Gorst from Edith's mind, but it only
served to fix it more securely there.
"Edith," she said presently, "I will keep my promise."
"Which promise?" Edith was mystified. Her mind unwillingly renounced the
idea of Mr. Gorst, and the promise could not possibly refer to him.
"The promise I made to you about Walter."
"My dear one, I never thought you would break it."
"I shall never break it. I've accepted Walter once for all, and in spite
of everything. But I will not accept these people you say I've been let
in for. I will not know them. And I shall have to tell him so."
"Why should you tell him anything? He doesn't want you to take them to
your bosom. He sees how impossible they are."
"Ah--if he sees that."
"Believe me" (Edith said it wearily), "he sees everything."
"If he does," thought Anne, "it will be easier to convince him."